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Bammo, sip down! I’m on a roll with these morning cold brews. 2L jugs disappear before you know it.

Oh my, this is wonderful. The dry leaf smells like smooth vanilla spice. Taste-wise, the base is very smooth, no grassiness or bitterness. Just very mellow and allows the other flavours to shine. You know how when you combine some notes, they create an entirely different flavour? It seems like the vanilla and spices are creating a cola scent and flavour. Like cola bottle gummy candy. I’ve noticed this with certain bath products too, like the Body Shop’s gingerbread scrub, whose spices and sweetness morphed into cola. Lush’s Almond buttercream, comprising almond, cinnamon, and vanilla, also smelled like cola. So fascinating.

My mom is also in love with this tea, and agrees on the cola candy similarities.

I sipped this beauty in my new snowflake Nordic mug whilst watching My Neighbour Totoro with my mom, who never saw it until now. What a splendid evening.

Thanks muchly to Lala for sending some my way! I love root beer, and haven’t had a root beer float in ages (the picture on the pouch makes me want to experience that again sometime) so in order to try to emulate root beer in a cold, frosty mug, I decided to cold steep this.

And it’s truly yummy, like root beer with a stronger black tea background. Kind of wish I saved a bit for a hot cup to compare but this is an excellent alternative to actual root beer.

Speaking of experiences, I went to a movie at the theatre for the first time since 2010. Mockingjay broke my four-year streak. Not as captivating as the first two but I still can’t wait for the next to come out!

Kind of having an Ode to my Sort-of-Hometown morning. Took a shower with some scrumptious Pumpkin Spice soap handmade in Edmonton. If, by the way, you’re a fan of good quality soap and are in Edmonton, I highly recommend Wild Prairie Soap on Whyte avenue. And now I’ve been trying out these Tea Girl teas.

This one caught my nose, so-to-speak, in the store with its tart orange aroma. The liquor is a pretty bright, deeper melon orange, and smells very sweet, like a super sweet tangerine. I was kind of worried for a while thinking it may taste too artificial. First sip initially hit me with sweet orange but every sip after has been relaxed. Not overly sweet at all. It also doesn’t have a thick syrupy mouthfeel like many fruit blends with hibiscus do. The hibiscus, by the way, is very minimal, so minimal that you almost wouldn’t suspect that there is even hibiscus in here based on the colour of the liquor. The more I smell the steeped tea, the more it’s reminding me of a fluffy orangey marshmallow. I almost forgot that this was supposed to have a creamy aspect to it so it’s all making sense now. Oh yeah, the more I smell it, the more creamsicle-like it truly is. Cool!

But it doesn’t taste as creamy as one would expect. It tastes more like orange slush with a tiny hint of creaminess than full-on creamsicle.

It makes a great cold brew.

A little bit of factoid power: The owner of the Tea Girl used to work at Steeps, an establishment found in Edmonton and Calgary, purchased one of the Steeps locations in Edmonton and rebranded it as her own. It has a similar system, where you buy teas by the tin. There is also some tea overlap between the two. In other words, she seems to have kept a lot of Steeps teas in her inventory, but there are a bunch that I never recall seeing at Steeps, such as their #YEGnog and maybe even this one.

I was automatically drawn towards this one because it smells so delectably creamy and nutty. The dry leaf is laced with slivered almonds, rose petals, and walnuts.

No rose here, but I’m getting a ton of creaminess, a touch of caramel, and of course, toasted nuts. The aroma of the steeped tea actually reminds me a lot of Butiki’s Maple Pecan Oolong (yep, even more so than David’s Toasted Walnut). As much as I looove that one, I’m really liking the base in this one. It seems to go well with the creamy nutty flavours. While I get tired of oolongs and/or really need to be in the mood to drink this one, greens can be enjoyed almost anytime for me.

I’m going to have to play around with the ratios, however, as I noticed that if you add a little too much, the sencha can get a little bitter. Otherwise, the flavouring in this tea is great.

Because I still haven’t gotten through all my Edmontonian teas and two BF orders are still patiently twiddling their thumbs in their opened boxes in my living room, I never even had the chance to talk about the absolutely magnificent package Lala recently sent my way, packed full of all kinds of tea goodies, from loose-leaf, to bagged tea, honey sticks, and herbs. It’s so overwhelming, I don’t even know how long it would take to update my virtual cupboard! Seriously, Lala, thank you so incredibly much! Remember what I said, though. :)

I randomly picked something out of the huge box this morning, and lo and behold, this cute little sachet wound up in the palm of my hand. I never heard of this brand before, nor was it entered into the system, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.

I steeped and took a few sips before I even ventured out to find out more about this tea, immediately knowing it was a Ceylon from the first sip. The mango is very faint in flavour but a little stronger in scent. It most definitely smells like dried mango.

This could be interesting iced. I’m glad to try something totally new!

Sip down with the lovely help of cacao husks AND Baileys Vanilla Cinnamon. It’s kind of like drinking Fry’s cocoa with Baileys but more complex.

These cacao husks do their job and taste pretty much the same as Herbal Infusion’s, although I swear HI’s was a little sweeter. Could be the source/batch, or even just a memory blitz. Somehow this time around I’m not caring for cacao husks on their very own. The liquor is a little too thick and sludgy on its own in comparison to other teas/tisanes. I’d rather mix it with a black tea to give this a little more depth.

I haven’t had a rhubarb tea in a while, and the last couple that I smelled in stores (like at Janet’s Special Teas) underwhelmed me. I want sour tart rhubarb that leaves that weird, almost tingly feeling in the mouth just from smelling it. What is that even called? That’s when I know something, usually fruit, will taste awesome!

This smells heavier on the rhubarb and there’s a touch of creaminess too. Drinking it without any additives, the base is a little too much and takes over the other flavours. Adding light cream improves the balance. The rhubarb pops out again. I’d still like a little more rhubarb, and for the base to be a little on the calmer side. But FWIW, it’s probably the most rhubarby tea I’ve tried to date.

No wait, David’s Strawberry Rhubarb Parfait is quite rhubarby, but I’d never have that hot anyway. So regarding rhubarb black teas, this has the most prominent rhubarb flavour.

Evening tea extravaganza. This is juicy, tart grapefruit in a mug. Besides its wonderful aroma sucking me in, I bought this to compare to Butiki’s Grapefruit Dragon since I didn’t care for the base and have been on a search for another grapefruit green tea. I think I’ve found it. I normally don’t care for sencha as they can be a little too grassy for my liking, but here, it’s very mild. I don’t detect any grassiness at all. The grapefruit flavour itself is virtually on par with Butiki’s too.

Maybe I’ll try to cold brew this sometime.